“John Peter, Jean-Pierre.”
“Yes! It makes sense, no?”
“Separt’s caller didn’t sound Aussie to me.” She shrugged. The tape had held fairly well. He just hoped she didn’t sweat. “Okay,” he said, “you can drop the shirt. It looks okay.”
“You sound like a doctor.”
He smiled. “Your... colleague, he sounds as if he’s on the ball. I mean, he sounds efficient.”
“It was easy for him. The bar was in the directory. Then he entered the street name into the computer just to see if there was any further information. Monsieur Wrightson’s name came on to the screen.”
“Speaking of computers...”
“Everything is being printed out at my office. We can pick up copies later today. That was a clever trick you played.”
He shrugged. “A computer makes it easy.” Not that he imagined Separt would keep anything important on the disks. Dominique looked ready to go. “We haven’t tried out the transmitter yet.”
“They worked yesterday. This one will work today. I trust you.”
“That’s another thing. We’ve got to go back to Separt’s apartment and get those two —”
“Later, later.” She grabbed his hand. “Now let’s hurry, otherwise Mama will wonder what we’re doing in here.” And she giggled as she led him down the hall, yelling a farewell to her mother. Then she stopped. “Wait a moment,” she said, returning to her bedroom. When she appeared again, she was pinning an Anarchy badge to her T-shirt.
“Nice touch,” he said.
The punk driving the 2CV certainly attracted stares from male drivers whenever she stopped at lights or was caught in a jam. Barclay had to give her credit. If — when — Separt and Jean-Pierre spoke again, their descriptions of the two women who visited them would be difficult to reconcile into a single individual. Her boot heels even made her a good inch taller. Her hair was the same color as yesterday, but that was the only area of comparison. In all other details, she was a different person.
They’d agreed that she would visit Jean-Pierre alone: Barclay would stick out like a sore thumb. Dominique could disguise herself, but there was no disguising Barclay. She would visit alone, but Barclay insisted that she would wear a wire, so that he could listen from the car. He didn’t want her getting into trouble.
They went over Dominique’s story again on the way there. The fact that Jean-Pierre might well be the anarchist John Wrightson gave them a new angle to work from. They added it to her story, making slight alterations. The street they finally entered was squalid and incredibly narrow, or rather made narrow by the lines of parked cars either side, leaving a single lane with no passing places. A car in front of them — and thankfully traveling the same direction as them — hesitated by a gap between two of the parked cars, considered it, but moved on. It was a gap just about big enough for a motorbike or a moped, but not for a car.
“We’re in luck,” said Dominique, passing the gap and then stopping. “Here’s a space.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
But she’d already pushed the dashboard-mounted gearshift into reverse, and craned her neck around to watch through the rear window as she backed the car in towards the curb, turning the steering wheel hard. Barclay watched through the front windscreen and saw that they were a centimeter from the car in front. Then there was the slight jolt of a collision: they had hit the car behind. But Dominique just kept reversing, pushing against the car behind, then easing down on the clutch and turning the steering wheel hard back around. This time, edging forwards, her front bumper touched the car in front and pushed it forward a couple of centimeters.
“In Paris,” she said, “we park with the hand brake off.”
“Right,” said Barclay. The 2CV was now parked, curbside, a couple of inches from the car in front, and the same distance from the car behind. He tried not to think about how they would make a fast getaway.
“That’s Janetta’s,” said Dominique. “You see? With the sign.”
Barclay saw. “It doesn’t look particularly open.”
“It’s open,” she said. With nice timing, the door of the bar was pulled from within, and a fat, unshaven man wearing blue workman’s clothes and a beret came sauntering out. He looked like he’d had a few drinks. It was quarter to ten. The door jangled closed behind him.
“So it’s open,” he said.
“Monsieur Wrightson lives this side of the street, across from the bar. Number thirty-eight. Oh, well.” She took a deep breath. She did look a little nervous. It struck Barclay that maybe she too was getting out of her depth.
“Be careful,” he said as she opened the door.
“I’ll be careful,” she said, closing the door after her. She came around to his side of the car and opened the door to say something more. “If anything does happen to me...”
“Yes?”
“Please, look after Mama.” Then she closed the door again, gave him a big grin and threw him a kiss, before turning on her noisy heels and making for number thirty-eight. He wondered if that extra wiggle of her leather-clad bum was for him, or whether she was just getting into her part. Then he reached for his receiver, switched it on, and waited.
She had to climb two flights to the door marked WRIGHTSON, J-P. She spoke in a low voice as she climbed.
“I hope you can hear me, Michael. This is a very dirty stairwell, not at all like Monsieur Separt’s. It makes me wonder what the two men could have in common, one living in luxury, the other in squalor. What do you think? Their politics, perhaps? Ideals can bridge gulfs, can’t they?”
She paused outside the door, then pressed the buzzer. She couldn’t hear anything from inside, so she knocked with her closed fist instead. And again. And again. There was a noise from within, a creaking floorboard, someone coughing. The door was unlocked.
“Qui est...? Jesus Christ!” The man who stood there was scrawny, no fat at all on his body. He wore only tight gray underpants and had a cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth. He stared hard at every inch of the girl in front of him. “Jesus Christ,” he said again. Then he lapsed into French, and Dominique was sure in her mind. When she spoke, she spoke in English.
“Ah... I am looking for Diana.”
“You speak English?” He nodded, scratching himself. Then he frowned. “Diana? Never heard of her.”
“Oh.” She looked crestfallen. “She told me she lived here.”
“Here?”
She nodded. “I think so. She told me her address and I forgot it. I was drunk a little, I think. But this morning I wake up and I think I remember it. I dreamed it, maybe.”
“You mean this building?”
She shook her head, earrings jangling against each other. “This floor.”
“Yeah? Well, there’s old Prévost across the hall... but he hasn’t set foot outside since ’sixty-eight.” Wrightson smiled. He was still studying her; appraising her. “Anyway,” he said, “come in. Can’t remember when I last saw a punk.”
“Is it not still the fashion in England?”
“I wouldn’t know, chérie. I’m not English, I’m Australian.”
Dominique looked excited. “Yes!” she said. “Diana told me there was an Australian!”
“Yeah?” He frowned again. “Beats the hell out of me.”
“You do not know her?”
He shrugged. “Describe her to me.”
He had led her through a hall resembling a warehouse. There were boxes of flyers, teetering piles of books, and the walls were covered with political posters. One of the posters showed a scrawled capital A over a circle.
“Anarchy,” she said, pointing to it. “Just like my badge.”